Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 150: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

He choked and caught his breath back again. “Ill go back with you—” Then he saw that he was facing Maun in his own house. Striker fell into a chair and buried his head in his hands. He knew that already the three human beings were Sleeting back to Rigel with a sad message for the fate of Man. “Maun,” he groaned, “they couldn’t ask me. | had to volunteer it. They’re dying out—need fresh blood—that’s me. But they couldn’t ask me!” Maun, aged face wrinkled with concern, gasped: “Striker- how did you get here? Are you ill?” Striker was feverish. “There was a race of men before mine. They died out. Your people will rise to internationalism, spaceflight, radiational existence—and then—” Maun rose and got Striker a narcotic drink. “You're sick,” he said. Striker pushed it away, thought better of it and drained the cup. If Maun thought he was raving, so much the better. This was the blackest day of Striker’s life, a message of cosmic futility that made the Middle Ages, six hundred years of ignorance, blackness and horror, seem like a stubbed toe. He would not talk. It would serve no purpose and help no person in the business of living. ” CORniclooo SS (SO)